Codename: Airbags

Ahoy all you Sky Pirates! We’ve so much to announce after our power week, which turned into two. First of all, we claimed the rights to Sky Pirates! So now the official name will be Sky Pirates: Puzzles & Plunder! Sky Pirates invokes such imagery, we could not let it pass us by.  But for those who loved Empyrean Raiders (including myself), don’t be worried! That will be the official name of the first pirate crew, and will belong in the lore as legendary pirates, both past and current. Those part of the Empyrean Raiders crew will start as NPC’s to guide and direct new pirates, but eventually we hope to open it up to legendary players as well! We have moved from multiple individual puzzle apps to a single app we`ll put all the puzzles into. This will better allow you all to jump between puzzles for training offline without having to close and open other apps, and it`ll allow us to align your mobile and PC profiles without adding more complexity!  To that end, we`ll b...

 Ahoy Sky Raiders!      Right now we`re in the middle of a POWER WEEEEEEEKKK. Which mostly means we're consuming half our body weight in caffeine and trying to get as much done as we can before our brains shut off. I`ve been feeling particularly behind, but there's so much to do as we start to combine our puzzles into the main game and for PC. I`ll get you all up to speed with what we've been working on and how busy our summer's been!      Back in July we were invited to Open Sauce, and well, that was a bit of a surprise to us. We had spent just a week working on a side project using augmented reality to do a space shooter, and had submitted it months previously. With only three weeks to go we got the notice that we had a booth, and we were still a week away from home on a planned trip. So we had to immediately get the game ready for thousands to see in just two weeks. It was close. Russ was literally working on it the morning of the event.  ...

On the road again Its been a busy time at RXR games! We are now traveling across the country so we're away from home, office, and emotional support cat. Still, we have news and upcoming events to share! First, if you haven't heard, we've put out our first two puzzle games on both Apple and Google play stores! Both Hydronautics and Windcatcher are available now.  We've been getting a lot of good feedback to help us direct the updates and refinements as well so a big thank you to everyone who has sent us some either on the form or our Discord. Hydronautics:  Google Play- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rxrgaming.hydronautics&pcampaignid=web_share Apple Store- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/empyrean-raiders-hydronautics/id6745344003 Windcatcher: Google Play- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rxrgaming.sailing Apple Store- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/empyrean-raiders-windcatcher/id6745278561 Remember that these are just ste...

Sailing has come a long way very quickly, we (Russ) started from scratch again, but with a better understanding of how we wanted the game to feel and the features we wanted to build in. With all our foundation work on Hydronautics it became the first puzzle to be brought on using all the prior work we had put in.  There were growing pains, and a lot of deep discussions about what should be done within each individual puzzle and what should be done in a universal code block. It can seem straightforward, rating each puzzle by a scoring rubric. In reality, none of them play the same way, so scoring and rating how skill is measured can be tricky! This brings to mind how important it will be for all of you to let us know what is working for you and what is holding you back. As we develop variations on the puzzles, it`ll be the best way to guide our design process. While it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to love at least one variant of each puzzle, the goal is to make it so you d...

  Ahoy all you salty sky-raiders! As the spring weather rolls in we are drenching ourselves in our work. Recovered from sickness and back on track we are pushing to get the first puzzle into your awaiting hands. My baby, Hydronautics (formerly bilge) is coming along and we are in the process of finishing it to be packed up and ready for deployment. Soon you`ll be able to get your hands wet with our first puzzle, which we’re aiming to follow up shortly with the others. Our initial work is vital to the process, so we`ve spent a lot of time making sure the backbones for the interface, game management, and effects will work across multiple games.  Before we plunge into the depths of the full release we`ll be putting out all the individual puzzle games to play, getting player feedback, trying some experiments, and fixing bugs. We will be releasing a more detailed dive into Hydronautics with a video shortly (once I finish editing it...again). But I`d like to take a little of your ti...

  There’s Something in the Air It’s germs.       We’ve both caught something this last week and have been lucky to scrape together two brain cells between us. B ut we’re coming out the other side, cleaning the house, and even knocking a few things off our game dev list between coughing and sneezing.      Just take a look at how much has changed in the game!                                              Before After      Yeah, all the things we completed were more ‘under-the-hood’ than visually significant. We’ve built up the sign-in system, embedded some basic analytics, started our save-game system, and added code comments!      Sometimes, it’s the little things.      Another thing that was supposed to happen over t...